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People walk in floodwater in Caluag City, Quezon Province, the Philippines, on Oct.21, 2020 in this image taken from social media. Municipal Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management – Caluag / via REUTERS.
HANOI / MANILA – Vietnam rushed to evacuate thousands of people from their homes as Tropical Storm Saudel approached on Wednesday, bringing further misery to a country that has endured weeks of heavy rains and flooding that have killed more than 100 people.
After hitting the Philippines, the storm was making its way through the South China Sea and was expected to hit Vietnam on Sunday, making landfall in central areas that are suffering the worst flooding in two decades.
“The damage will be immense if we are not well prepared, as the projected impact area has already suffered from flooding and landslides,” Mai Van Khiem, head of Vietnam’s meteorological agency said in a statement.
The region has been hit by particularly heavy rains amid the onset of a La Niña weather system, which is characterized by unusually cold temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
In the Philippines, photos showed widespread flooding and boats used to transport residents to dry land in Quezon province, southeast of the capital Manila.
Humanitarian groups have warned that the flooding in Vietnam will exacerbate the hardships some of the country’s poorest communities are already experiencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food delivery to some of the most severely affected areas has become difficult, and photographs and television images of the floods that almost completely submerge rural farms have sparked a large number of donations for aid.
Volunteers from all over Vietnam have been preparing a high-calorie banh chung, a traditional dish made from packets of sticky rice stuffed with pork and wrapped in tropical leaves, to distribute to the most affected areas.
EDV
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